I stared at the front of the room, watching as the teacher wrote down some of the learning objectives for the day. It was almost mesmerizing to watch the purple marker glide across the board.

"Ivan!" Vera screeched, startling me as she threw herself down into the chair next to mine. With a hand against my rapidly beating heart, I glared at her.

"Jesus Vera! You scared the shit out of me."

"Did you get your suit? Homecoming is this Saturday you know," she rushed. I reassured her that I had it, remembering all too well a couple days ago when Mrs. Clarissa took me to get measured. Benji and Mary were making a mess of the shop, but Mrs. Clarissa had tunnel vision on me, making sure the seamstress was getting everything down properly. I think she was more excited about my first dance than I was.

After my class with Vera, I walked down the hallway to my statistics class, where I usually just kept to myself since there wasn't anyone I knew in that class. That's probably why my grade was so high despite the fact that it was a math class. Well, high as in barely passing, but math wasn't exactly my strong suit. Taking a seat at my usual desk off to the side by the windows, I saw a pair of pristine white sneakers come into my view as I unpacked my bag. Looking up, I saw Chloe standing in front of me, a big smile stretched across her face, glossy lips glistening in the sun light streaming through the window. Oh right, she was in this class.

"Hi Ivan! How was your weekend?" She chirped, leaning her hand on my desk.

"Uh, good. Yours?" I questioned politely, even though I really could not care less.

The bubbly blonde girl perked up, I couldn't even imagine having consistently high energy like she did. "Mine was great, thanks! So the homecoming group is having a meet-up at my house after school today, you should come! And Vera too! We were thinking about working out a plan for this Saturday."

I cleared my throat awkwardly. "That sounds great, I'll be there."

"Cool, here's my address," she said, leaning down to write it on a piece of paper with a sparkly pink pen.

Shooting me one more smile, she strode back to her desk next to another pretty brunette girl. Staring down at my notebook, I remembered all the years I spent thinking Chloe was just a shallow popular girl, when in reality she had been nothing but nice to me. Maybe it's about time I got my head out of my ass.

At lunch, Ethan stopped by Vera and I's table to invite us to the meeting at Chloe's house. I informed him that Chloe had beat him to it, and he laughed, his eyes crinkling around the corners. I was infatuated at how he could look so handsome in the most candid of moments, and I continued to watch him as he walked away, only snapping out of my trance as Vera smacked her palm down onto the table with a sharp slap.

"He's got a nice ass, doesn't he?"She smirked.

With a blush dusting my cheeks, I slid the piece of paper with Chloe's address across the table to her. "What is this?"

"Chloe's address, for the meeting she's holding after school with the homecoming group to make plans for Saturday. I'll probably be catching a ride with Ethan, do you need her address? Or do you have the way to her house memorized?" I teased.

With a roll of her eyes, Vera cracked open the can of her soda, folding the paper over and shoving it in the front pocket of her baggy jeans. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. I'll take it just in case."

"Right," I smirked, shaking my head and digging into my food.

~

As Ethan pulled his car up to the curb, I stared out the window at Chloe's house. It looked nice and well kept, but not any more expensive than the other houses in the high class neighborhood. Opening the door, I slid out of the car and joined Ethan at the end of the driveway, where he waited next to a shiny white Camaro. I looked around for Vera's Volvo, but it looked like she hadn't arrived yet. A charcoal pick up truck was parked on the curb across the street, and I figured that was Chase's car. He still unnerved me a bit. As we stepped up to the porch, Ethan knocked on the door a few times, a high pitched barking coming from the inside. Ethan elbowed me playfully, "careful of the beast in there."

I gave him a questioning look right as Chloe yanked open the door, carrying a Pomeranian that couldn't be more than ten pounds under her arm like a football.

"Hey! I'm glad you could make it, Ivan," she gave Ethan a quick hug as the demonic fur ball nipped at him from under Chloe's arm, before turning and walking towards the living room.

I bit my lip to stifle my laughter as Ethan made faces at the dog, trying to get it riled up. Chloe led us off to the right towards a big living room with a large white sofa and tiger print floor rug. A flatscreen TV was hanging from the wall above the fireplace, some football game was playing that Chase watched from his seat in the armchair. Catching a glimpse of fiery red hair, I recognized Emma sitting next to another girl with dark brunette hair at one end of the long white couch, leaning into each other and laughing about something. Ethan sat in the middle of the couch, and I quickly joined him, making sure to leave a spot next to me for Vera.

"You guys want anything to drink?" Chloe asked as she leaned against the arm of the couch, her voice rising in pitch as it always did around Ethan.

"A beer?" Chase muttered, eyes still glued to the TV. Chloe gave him a dead look, "it's three in the afternoon."

Chase just shrugged his shoulders, Chloe rolled her eyes and mumbled under her breath to get him a soda. Her bright blue eyes landed on Ethan and I next, a small smile playing on her lips as her eyes trained on Ethan. It made a bitterness boil inside of me.

"I'm fine," I chirped, emulating the way she always talked. The most hardship she's ever encountered in life was probably misplacing the keys to her brand new Camaro. Everyone's attention quickly settled on me, stunned expressions painting their faces. I settled back into the couch, none of them even knew my name before Ethan, even though we've gone to the same schools together since the very beginning. That had to have been the most emotion they've ever seen from me. Not like it's my fault exactly, the flat effect had made me the equivalent of a brick in the feelings department. Ethan looked at me with raised eyebrows, his sly smile telling me he knew exactly what I was doing. Feeling a small jab of his elbow on my arm, he politely declined Chloe's offer as well. There was a sharp knock at the door, and I was up before Chloe even had to scream from the kitchen for someone to get it. Rushing to the door, I hauled it open and waved Vera in quickly.

"Jesus, it's good to see you too," she smirked.

I sighed in relief, "I'm glad you're here. I've been here for barely fifteen minutes and I'm already losing my shit."

I heard Vera's laughs as I showed her to the living room, awkward waves were exchanged as we sat down, Chase didn't even react to Vera's arrival, continuing instead to remain invested in the football game.

"Hey Vera," Ethan smiled at her, leaning back and putting his arms across the back of the couch, one of them placed painfully close behind my shoulders. She returned his greeting, eyes darting between his arm and me, wiggling her eyebrows. I rolled my eyes at her antics.

"Fuck! Ethan you saw that right? Their quarterback blows, and ours pulls the exact same shit. I bet you'd be better," Chase finally tore his eyes away from the screen only to look at Ethan, and I instantly got a bad taste in my mouth.

"Ah, I don't know about that," he replied humbly, shifting slightly in discomfort at the topic.

"You're not even going to try out? I mean it's late, but our quarterback is so shitty, Coach would take you in a heartbeat just to get him out."

"Sounds rough, but I'm not playing anymore."

"Really? Have you seen our cheerleaders? Chloe's on the cheer team," he said playfully. Chloe returned with the drinks, a slight blush coloring her cheeks. She sat down on the other side of Ethan, leaning slightly into him and resting her head on his bicep. I trained my eyes on the coffee table, attempting to stamp down my jealousy before it got too obvious.

"So Vera, you're going with Ivan?" Emma interjected with a light tone, sensing the rising tension in the room. Vera stared at her with her mouth slightly parted, it was like her brain was short circuiting.

"O-oh, well yeah, just as friends," she sputtered. I shot her a look, Vera returning it with a silent apology playing around her sheepish grin.

"That's cool. I'm glad you guys are in our group."

"Yeah, me too," Vera replied dreamily, a lazy smile on her lips as she stared intensely at Emma.

"Alright everyone, what's the plan then?" Chloe clapped to get everyone's attention.

Ethan quickly offered to drive Vera and I, and proclaimed that along with Chloe, that meant his car was full; and with Chloe's reign over the group, no one dared to question that. The rest of the time was spent over Chase arguing with Emma and Chloe about who he had to drive to the dance. I discovered that there were many more people in the group other than those currently at Chloe's house, but I shouldn't have been too surprised with how popular all of these people are.

As everyone eventually disbanded, I caught Vera chatting up Emma next to her Volvo. It suddenly dawned on me that Vera must be really interested in Emma, and I knew I had to bring it up later. Following Ethan to his car, I slid into the passenger side and was forced to buckle up before he would even start the car.

"You're ridiculous."

Ethan feigned hurt. "Safety is never ridiculous, Ivy." I sighed, shaking my head as I obeyed and he pulled away from the curb.

"So, you're picking Vera and I up at eight? Isn't that when the dance starts?"

Ethan rolled his eyes and shook his head, leaning his elbow on the door. "No, because that's stupid. I'll convince her to make the dinner reservations at six so we can actually get there on time."

I hummed, remembering how that whole conversation blew up. Just the thought of Ethan having dinner with Chloe made me want to throw up and scream. I desperately needed to figure out a way to contain my jealousy, or the entire night is going to go up in flames.

~

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